


Tyto Alba

by HolyCatsAndRabbits



Series: Alba [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 7 Deadly Sins, Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Angst, Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Aziraphale has a library, Aziraphale is a barn owl, Aziraphale knows the secret of the Loch Ness Monster if you're brave enough to ask, Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Crowley is (still) Raphael, Crowley is still a serpent, Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), Happy Ending, Humor, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Jealous Crowley (Good Omens), Lust, Other, Pining, Possessive Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Queen lyrics, Resolved Sexual Tension, Secrets, Sexual Tension, Summoning Circles, The Bentley - Freeform, Top Aziraphale (Good Omens), radio show, resolved angst, reverse au, snow fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:26:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21670678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolyCatsAndRabbits/pseuds/HolyCatsAndRabbits
Summary: Written for the Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019 forCrowleyisms(Sparky)** NOW UPDATED with art by Sparky!**This fic takes place in a fantasticreverse AUcreated by Sparky, where the demon Aziraphale has a library full of secrets for sale, and the archangel Raphael the Healer has fled Heaven due to the temptation to ask dangerous questions of God. Raphael is living in hiding on Earth under the name Crowley, reaching out to those hurting souls who need him via a radio show.“Crowley, bless him, was the biggest unanswered question in Aziraphale’s universe. Despite not really wanting to know everyone’s secrets, Aziraphale could not deny that answers, whether clear or secret, were weapons. They were armour. But around Crowley, Aziraphale had always found himself unable to mount much of a defense, or an offense, against his feelings. It should have made him avoid Crowley at all costs.Especially because, every once in a while, Aziraphale got the feeling that Crowley might desire Aziraphale in return.”Come get y'all wacky misadventures and sexual tension!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Alba [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631878
Comments: 164
Kudos: 528
Collections: Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AarinsRitsuka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AarinsRitsuka/gifts).



> Title: Tyto Alba is the scientific name of the barn owl (the Latin literally translates as "owl white").

**April, 1934**

**London**

Aziraphale was a lover of beautiful things. He was a collector of beautiful things. Books, especially, but also historical artifacts (many gathered by the demon himself at the time they were made), musical recordings, works of art, and so on. Unfortunately, it wasn’t actually possible for a demon to collect an angel and keep him in the back of a library like a treasured first-edition (possibly even signed by The Author—if She’d been proud of anyone enough to sign them, Aziraphale imagined, it would have been the Archangel Raphael, now known as Anthony J. Crowley). But even if Aziraphale hadn’t ever figured out a way to keep Crowley all to himself, he could treasure the parts of the angel that Crowley would share with him.

Crowley’s voice, for example, was almost as handsome as the angel himself. Which is why when Aziraphale heard his radio come on by itself with a burst of static, he put down his book in anticipation of the smooth, rich, golden-warm sound of his best friend speaking to him.

“Aziraphale, are you home?”

Aziraphale gave a good-natured sigh. “You know that I am, my dear, or you wouldn’t have used my library radio.”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure whether Crowley simply did not grasp the fundamental functioning of a radio or if he had just elected to ignore the user manual, but whichever the case, Crowley tended to use radios without a large amount of respect for earthly physics. For one thing, if the angel so wished, any radio in range of whomever he wanted to reach would find itself capable of receiving his voice. (And so naturally, Aziraphale had decided that his library radio ought to function as a two-way transmitter, and therefore, it did.)

Aziraphale could hear the amusement in Crowley’s voice. “I’m sorry. Guess I should have just asked if you were busy.”

Aziraphale removed his reading glasses, setting them on his desk with a _clink._ “And if I had been? Having an angel suddenly call in is not conducive to the successful completion of a temptation.”

“Me?” Crowley asked, with that brightness to his voice that suited him so well, a sunshine-sound that could only come out of a mouth well-used to smiling. “Thwart a temptation? Never.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” Aziraphale said skeptically. He crossed the room to the radio and turned up the volume. It really was such a beautiful piece, red-varnished wood with golden inlays. Aziraphale had purchased it as soon as they’d discovered Crowley’s proclivity toward radios.

Aziraphale could see Crowley in his mind, the angel leaning over whatever radio he was using at the moment, his scarlet hair falling over his shoulders in impossibly perfect angelic waves, the smile lines around his golden eyes gently pulling at the smoothness of his face. It struck Aziraphale suddenly that the radio he’d picked quite resembled the angel who used it, and he frowned to himself, withdrawing his hand, which had for some reason started to run itself along the radio’s polished surface.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, my dear?” he asked.

“Just popping into town for a quick miracle. Thought we might do lunch?”

“Sounds lovely. You’re buying.”

The angel laughed. “Of course, _Alba_. See you at the Ritz.”

Humming to himself now in contentment, Aziraphale took a moment to set the library to rights. A wave of his hand removed his tea cup and book from the desk and shelved anything else left out. The library was filled with Aziraphale’s treasures. Most of his collection was obviously not for lending. Occasionally, a popular modern paperback would find its way out of the doors (although it was really in the best interest of patrons to leave empty-handed, because Aziraphale charged very stringent fees for late or worse, unreturned items). What the library actually traded in was secrets. Ethereal, occult, human, occasionally even Divine (knowledge of the difference between good and evil was occasionally too much for an angel to resist, unfortunately for them). If you were in the market for a little information, it could most easily be yours. For a small price, of course.

Secrets came to Aziraphale in a variety of ways. Some were traded to him in partial payment for other secrets. Many appeared in written form, manifesting themselves as new books in the library. Most Aziraphale just _knew_ because some demonic power deposited them in his head, quite un-asked for. He wasn’t told every answer, of course, but what he did know kept the library doing a brisk business.

Some answers were obvious, not secrets at all, and for them, there was no price. (Aziraphale had no trouble telling a woman with a black eye that she was not truly loved. And far from it being a waste of time to be asked a question like that, the demon always did take great pleasure in paying her husband a _visit_ afterwards.)

For everything else, a seeker of answers had to commit a mortal sin as payment: greed, envy, pride, sloth, wrath, gluttony, or lust. Hell had set the prices and there was no escaping them. (Ironically for Hell, Aziraphale could only charge that price to humans and angels, the two kinds of beings who could imperil themselves through sin. Demons, already damned, were immune to sin, and thus could not pay. It had made Aziraphale fairly unpopular among other demons, being a possesser of answers that they could never purchase. He was glad that he spent very little time in Hell.)

But Aziraphale never actually tempted anyone into paying. He did use his Satan-given powers to draw people closer to him, into the library, into his sphere of influence, but once there, he simply set out some lures, and they did the rest.

_Wouldn’t it be so much easier to win the election if you had some private information on your opponent? You do need to win the election, after all, for the greater good._

_Wouldn’t you like to be sure that your husband is loyal? It’s your right to know, isn’t it? Having invested so much in the marriage, having stayed true yourself? Of course, it might be even nicer to find you have good reason to have that dalliance with your neighbor. If your husband has cheated, then why should you not do the same?_

And then it was a simple matter of a sin for an answer.

Greed: _You could keep some of the money for yourself. After all, you’ve been a volunteer for so many years, and no one has ever acknowledged that. Don’t you deserve a little payment after all this time?_

Wrath: _Wouldn’t you like to finally tell him what you think of him? He’s walked all over you for years. You could berate him in front of the whole office, in fact._

If it was an uncomfortable thing to know so many secrets or to delve into the darkness of people’s hearts, then that was just par for the course of being a demon. It wasn’t supposed to be a comfortable sort of thing to be, after all.

Aziraphale pulled on his jacket as he left the library. He was quite proud of his clothes, having kept them in good condition for many years. It was a timeless style, of course. A cream-colored coat with a little feathering at its edges, perhaps meant to evoke the thought of wings. He paired it with cream trousers, brown waistcoat, and a tan ascot that crowded against his throat and draped over his chest in a way that was also quite feather-like. Aziraphale rarely changed his fashion. He would _never_ be able to change his nature. Unforgivable, that’s what he was, forever Fallen, his soul housed in the earth-toned, silent-winged, softly predatory form of a barn owl. And Aziraphale didn’t care who knew it.

Of course, if Aziraphale had possibly taken to dressing more in cream than brown in the centuries since Crowley had started calling him _Alba_ , well that was no one’s business. Just another of Aziraphale’s many secrets.

It had been so long now that Aziraphale couldn’t remember if the nickname had started as a joke. Crowley wasn’t really the type to tease people, but his wit did tend to be a little sharper when matched with Aziraphale’s. In any case, the term, from the Latin for barn owl, _tyto alba_ (literally _owl white),_ had long since become an endearment, despite the irony—there was nothing purely white to Aziraphale now; the only beings in creation with white wings were angels, and Aziraphale had long since left their ranks. Since the time of his Fall, Aziraphale’s wings had been the brown-mottled-with-cream of his demonic animal familiar. But Crowley would never have used the name if it actually hurt Aziraphale’s feelings. His poor, sweet, compassionate angel, incapable of showing cruelty even to a demon.

_No_ , Aziraphale reminded himself firmly. Crowley was not _his._

oOo

_The demon Aziraphale, by Crowleyisms_

oOo

It was definitely far more pleasurable to see Crowley in person, sitting beside Aziraphale at a table, than it was merely to hear his voice. That was in part because Crowley was, in Aziraphale’s opinion, rather devastatingly attractive. The lines of his face were sharp and angular, and his body was quite the same, cut broadly across the shoulders and narrow at the waist, rugged and lithe and lovely.

That body was quite pleasingly on display at the moment as the angel lounged in his chair, his limbs contorted in a way that wasn’t a very good imitation of human. The human body Crowley wore was not any more his true nature than Aziraphale’s was to him. God Herself came in all forms, not just human, and it pleased Her at times to create angels in other bodies. The Archangel Raphael was actually mostly serpentine and it showed in the way he flowed over furniture and in the golden eyes with vertical pupils that he hid behind dark glasses.

(In his true form, Crowley made a most _glorious,_ if rather enormous serpent, with a pink underbelly and a top coating of scales that shifted from shining white to tawny brown depending on his mood. There really was no better look to Aziraphale’s library than when a very large snake, amber-gold with contentment, had his coils draped all over one of the antique couches. Patrons in search of secrets, if they understood that Aziraphale hailed from Hell, tended to think that Crowley was another denizen of Downstairs hanging about. But of course, Crowley most definitely was not, and Aziraphale did have to weigh the soothing warmth of Crowley’s company against the sharp heat of his angelic aura, the presence of which tended to make the most evil of questioners uncomfortable.)

Crowley wore a pink shirt today, and the slim tie tucked into his brown waistcoat was a darker shade of it, nearly the red of his hair. His suit was brown-striped and cut in a very flattering, if modern, way. Crowley was always quite fashionable and up to date, except for his hair. He invariably wore it long, in glorious scarlet waves, curls, and the occasional ringlet that liked to bounce in and settle perfectly over one angelic shoulder.

“So what’s new in the secret business?” Crowley asked. He wasn’t, of course, truly asking. In fact, Aziraphale was always extremely careful with his secrets around Crowley because over the years the demon had come to realize that there were actually a _great many_ questions lurking in Crowley’s mind. The kind of questions any angel would be terrified to ask. Perhaps the kinds of questions that could frighten a high-ranking archangel so much that he would rather make a life for himself on Earth with an assumed name than remain in Heaven where the temptation to seek answers from God was the greatest. If Crowley was ever going to give in to temptation, it would be, ironically, to exactly the kind of thing that Aziraphale could provide.

But Aziraphale would never let that happen.

“There was a new photo published just yesterday,” Aziraphale told him. “Did you see it? Apparently Scotland has a monster in its Loch Ness.”

Crowley laughed. “And I suppose you have the truth of the photo’s authenticity locked up in your library. Will someone really trade a mortal sin for that?”

“Goodness, my dear, they’ll trade for far less,” Aziraphale assured him. He took a sip of wine as a distraction when Crowley smiled broadly at the waiter who approached their table.

It was part of Aziraphale’s job to be physically attractive, to entice people to get closer to him and his influence. But when he wanted to, the demon could easily send out _leave me alone_ vibes and continue about his life uninterrupted. Crowley could not (or else would not). People were drawn to his angelic aura, his happiness, his easy smile and quick laugh, and Crowley, blast him, welcomed them. Raphael, the healer, the comforter of souls. An angel so exuberantly loving that he couldn’t help but just give and give and give.

He was not Aziraphale’s.

But he was far more Aziraphale’s than the waiter’s, wasn’t he? Of course he was.

Aziraphale tracked the waiter as he left their table, aware that Crowley would find it unnecessarily rude if Aziraphale caused him to trip. “So what brings you to London?” Aziraphale asked.

“I’ve been assigned a miracle. Although it’s kind of—” Crowley waved his hand in the air and made one of his strange vocal noises that really should not have suited someone with such a smooth, radio-ready voice, but that somehow instead just made Crowley sound all that more interesting. “It’s odd,” the angel said finally.

A small, ice cold point of concern stabbed into Aziraphale’s chest. He stilled his fork on the way to his mouth. “Odd how?”

“Just—vague.” Crowley shrugged. “Go to a farmhouse on the outskirts of the city, meet a man who needs a blessing. It’s supposed to be a life-or-death thing, but—I don’t know. It’s strange that there aren’t more details.”

“And the message came the usual way? Through official channels?” Aziraphale angled his fork to point upward, in the direction of Heaven.

“Of course. Got a note.” Crowley patted a pocket. “Oh, must have left it behind.”

“Well,” said Aziraphale, in a carefully casual tone, “that certainly sounds intriguing. Would you mind some company?”

Crowley broke into one of those glorious smiles. “And if you came along, would you be planning to behave yourself, Alba?”

“Of course not,” Aziraphale replied, with a snort. “But I’ll leave your miracle alone, if that’s what concerns you.”

Crowley’s lovely mouth twisted in amusement, and despite the dark glasses, Aziraphale could feel the angelic warmth of Crowley’s gaze. “I’m sure there’s no harm in it, then,” Crowley said.

If Aziraphale was ever going to actually tempt Crowley, it would not be to the questions that lurked in his heart. It would have nothing to do with secrets at all. It would, quite obviously, be to lust.

Aziraphale had been aware of this hunger of his for ages, and it had concerned him greatly for a while, until the demon had realized that the urge came not from a desire to see Crowley Fall from Heaven, but purely to see him fall into Aziraphale’s bed. Those two outcomes being at odds (acting on lust was a mortal sin that would damn an angel), Aziraphale had elected not to pursue it. Desire for Crowley had become, thus, a frighteningly powerful temptation for the demon himself.

Aziraphale gave in where he could—many people elected to pay the price of lust for a secret, and often they were glad to pay it to Aziraphale himself. Aziraphale was indeed attractive, and after 6000 years of taking payments for secrets, the demon was exceptionally talented in bed. This particular sin certainly did not have to be unpleasant. Of course, Aziraphale had noticed that he tended to accept the offers of red-heads above all others, and invariably to cry out the wrong name as he fucked them.

Aziraphale didn’t know if Crowley was aware of any of that, the lust or what Aziraphale did to assuage it. Crowley, bless him, was the biggest unanswered question in Aziraphale’s universe. Despite not really wanting to know _everyone’s_ secrets, Aziraphale could not deny that answers, whether clear or secret, were weapons. They were armour. But around Crowley, Aziraphale had always found himself unable to mount much of a defense, or an offense, against his feelings. It should have made him avoid Crowley at all costs.

Especially because, every once in a while, Aziraphale got the feeling that Crowley might desire Aziraphale in return. There had been more than one occasion on which Aziraphale had caught Crowley giving him a look of guarded hunger.

If the desire was there, it wasn’t Crowley’s fault. Aziraphale had certainly never done anything to purposely tempt Crowley, but it was an inescapable part of the demon’s nature, his appearance, his work. Aziraphale was damned to be tempting. Being this close to him was dangerous for an angel. Fortunately, it seemed that for Crowley it never went beyond the occasional momentary craving. After all, Aziraphale was sure that if an angel were to feel true sexual attraction toward someone, something that wasn’t an accident of being friends with a tempter, that desire would definitely not be a demon for whom the sin of lust was a job description.

As they left the restaurant, Aziraphale himself gave into the temptation to drop behind the angel just a little bit, in order to savor the back view of him as he sauntered out of the restaurant. Snakes apparently weren’t very good at walking in a human body, it made them sway back and forth in a rather mesmerizing way. Also, Crowley tended to wear his trousers far too tight for an angel. Through some clearly undeserved miracle (or deserved torture), Aziraphale was regularly treated to the close outlining of Crowley’s delicious human physique, especially when the angel walked in front of him.

But when they reached the carpark and Aziraphale saw Crowley’s brand new acquisition, that blasted Bentley, standing there in all its sleek, black glory, he felt himself frown. “Surely we’re not going to drive all the way out into the country,” he protested, nervous fingers fussing with his ascot.

Crowley looked as if Aziraphale had suggested they walk instead. “The Bentley needs a good run. Can’t deny her that, it would be cruel.”

“Yes, but Crowley, your car doesn’t like me.”

The angel had gone round the other side of the car and he leaned over the roof of it now, looking far too pleased. “You’re imagining things.”

“I am not. She takes your side in arguments, and that’s what we do on long car rides, we arg—we _debate.”_

Crowley shrugged. “I did have a word with her, and I don’t think she’ll try to eject you at high speeds again.” The angel grinned and snapped his fingers, causing the passenger door to open. “Get in, Alba.”

Aziraphale gave the car a wary look before folding himself carefully into the seat. It was probably too much to hope for a seatbelt, and in fact, there was not one to be found on his side. Aziraphale made a little growling noise. But very little, lest the car pick it up.

Crowley let the Bentley roar to life beneath them, and then they were off from the car park at quite an unseemly speed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The photo of the Loch Ness Monster that Aziraphale mentions is the [Surgeon’s photo](https://www.donttakepictures.com/dtp-blog/2017/4/19/the-loch-ness-monster-turns-83-the-story-of-the-surgeons-photograph), published April 21, 1934. The secret of the photo was revealed to the public in 1994.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which we earn our E rating!

The Bentley really did love the open road. And Crowley loved the Bentley, and Aziraphale hated the car, so having Aziraphale along for the drive was a source of endless amusement to Crowley. Of course, it was mostly just that Aziraphale’s company made Crowley happy. But the sight of the normally cool and collected demon with his face flushed with suppressed terror was extremely entertaining. Of course, the sight did make Crowley imagine Aziraphale’s cheeks rosy and eyes wide for quite another reason, one which was definitely not a good thing for an angel to think about, but that was not really something that Crowley could help.

Crowley was aware, of course, of what it meant that Aziraphale’s job was to be a demonic deal-maker who could take payments in the form of lust. It was why Aziraphale looked the way he did: soft white-blond curls that you longed to get your fingers into, eyes so dark a brown that their irises were only a few shades farther toward black. A body so smoothly sculpted as to invite a person’s touch, curves so perfect that you mourned their loss when they disappeared behind Aziraphale’s ridiculously outdated clothing. It was why the demon moved the way he did: graceful, steady, slow, captivating, as if Aziraphale were a conductor of an orchestra, who could give you instruction—when to stop, when to move, and how fast.

In short, Aziraphale needed to be a walking temptation, and by Satan, he was. An angel in a state of Grace had absolutely no business hanging around such a person, and certainly not for 6000 years. But Crowley had. Because there was more to Aziraphale than temptation, a great deal more.

He was funny. He was clever. Confident, talented, passionate, eloquent, exciting. He was also kind. Aziraphale did not like to be reminded of that fact, of course, but it was true. The demon had carte blanche on Earth. He could have damned without recourse, he could have tortured and killed. But especially since establishing a close friendship with Crowley, Aziraphale had developed a lighter touch.

Crowley didn’t think it had been terribly difficult for Aziraphale to do, the demon really didn’t seem to have an overriding need to harm people. Most of his gentle, non-threatening, white-haired-librarian appearance was demonic camouflage, of course, designed to draw people into his parlor, as it were. Being so polite, friendly, calling everyone _my dear._ But Aziraphale did have a true underlying softness to him. When he called Crowley _my dear_ he actually meant it.

Aziraphale and Crowley had found a middle ground with the demon’s selling of secrets, as they had with so many things. Aziraphale traded in mortal sins, and Crowley did not interfere. But everyone left the library alive and well, and if they were human, they retained the ability to confess and return to God’s good graces. (Angels, of course, were denied this, they had no chance at repentance. Angels Fell, after all, because they were unforgivable.)

The question was, why had the angel and the demon forged a peace agreement which would definitely not have been approved by either of their sides? For Crowley it was because he couldn’t have won the battle without causing harm to Aziraphale. The demon’s work was mandated by Hell, and Aziraphale was no more free to stop selling secrets than he was to waive payment for them. If he did, he would be punished, and Crowley did not want to see his best friend harmed.

Aziraphale had agreed to it because he was in love with Crowley.

Crowley didn’t know whether Aziraphale himself was truly aware of that fact. Perhaps it was the kind of thing that was easier for an angel to sense. It was clear to both of them that the demon wanted him. Aziraphale was not at all good at concealing his desires for anything: food, art, music, Crowley. Aziraphale had wanted to tumble the angel into bed (or chair, or table, or against a wall) for thousands of years. But he hadn’t ever made a move toward him. It was one of the ways Crowley knew Aziraphale was in love.

Crowley often wished he wasn’t.

The Archangel Raphael had discovered long ago that Earth was a much more comfortable place to be than Heaven. Heaven had a strange atmosphere, a mix of unknowable things and ineffable plans and nothing concrete to stand upon and start from. It was confusing and ambiguous and unsettling. But Earth was also where Raphael had been needed, where he could do the most good, especially, he’d found, if he could live anonymously, under the name Crowley, as far out of Heaven’s sights as possible.

But fleeing Heaven and the temptation to try to make sense of God had landed Crowley in the lap (metaphorically) of an impossibly alluring demon who not only had the answers to the highest level of questions, but was also so damned attractive in body and mind that Crowley had to be careful not to actually jump in his lap and beg Aziraphale to give Crowley the attention that he craved. The kind that Aziraphale gave to countless humans and more than a few Falling angels, and never once to his best friend, not a single drunken touch, not one barely-there brush of lips that Aziraphale wanted but denied himself, that Crowley certainly should not even want but did. Knowing that Aziraphale’s touch would be purely loving just made the forbidden fruit all that more attractive.

Crowley had to force himself to be content with what Aziraphale could give him. Which, to be fair, was quite a lot.

Obviously, a demon who was a dealer in secrets was an unlikely companion for an archangel in hiding. And Crowley certainly had no more defense than anyone else over his private details when it came to Aziraphale. The demon was in possession of some of Crowley’s secrets by demonic default, facts about Crowley simply appeared in Aziraphale’s head or library, as did so many things. Aziraphale’s sharp mind had clearly deduced others over the last 6000 years. Some Crowley had simply told him (which always seemed to throw Aziraphale a little, as if he were somehow surprised that Crowley trusted him).

But never had Aziraphale ever _asked_ Crowley for an answer about himself or even about Heaven. And never had he sold a single of Crowley’s secrets. Not the fact that Crowley wasn’t fond of any other angel in creation, that he didn’t miss them or, even Heaven. Not that Crowley spent his life working among humans, reaching out to them with compassion and care far beyond the instructions of Heaven, now even starting to reach them via radio. Not the fact that Crowley’s heart housed dangerous questions.

Most importantly, Aziraphale had never told a soul Crowley’s true name, the Archangel Raphael. No other angels or demons or humans had discovered Crowley in hiding and tried to force him into roles he did not want. A life as a soldier of Heaven. A target of demons who were keen on trying their powers out on an archangel. The endless begging of favors that humans would do if they knew an angel was among them. (Crowley spent most of his time helping humans, but he could only do so much.) Heaven spoke to him in the form of assignments of blessings and miracles sent directly to him at an unknown address. Crowley rarely spoke back other than to fill out his paperwork. He didn’t speak with God at all.

The demon Aziraphale had been protecting the Archangel Raphael since they’d met 6000 years ago. Crowley walked the Earth like it was a tightrope between Heaven and the Fall, and Aziraphale did his best to hold Crowley’s hand and help him balance. Because Aziraphale loved him, and had loved him almost from their first meeting.

And Crowley did care for Aziraphale in return. He lavished more of his attention on the demon than anyone else in creation. Crowley loved to give Aziraphale the treasures the demon so desired, art and music and food, to take him to dinner, to the theater, to museums, and other libraries. It felt good, it felt right. The archangel Raphael had been created to be a healer, to soothe and sweeten and ease pain. And who could possibly deserve that more than the kindest and most trustworthy Fallen angel in existence?

At the moment, Aziraphale was accompanying him on this errand not just because he liked Crowley’s company, but because something concerned the demon about the blessing that Crowley had been assigned. As always, Aziraphale wanted to protect him. (With Aziraphale, what seemed to be uncanny intuition was often, of course, based more on unshareable knowledge. But either way, Crowley had learned never to dismiss one of Aziraphale’s uneasy feelings.)

They’d spent the ride discussing—with very little _debate—_ a few authors that both Aziraphale and Crowley had known in the seventeenth century. But despite how much Aziraphale was enjoying the conversation, and how tolerant the Bentley had been of the demon’s presence (Crowley had quickly come to suspect that the car might be a little jealous of Crowley’s best friend), Crowley could see the relief on Aziraphale’s face when Crowley slowed the car and turned into a farm lane.

“I don’t see anyone around,” the demon remarked, in a casual tone that did not fool Crowley.

“I’m sure we’ll find someone,” the angel answered. He slowed the Bentley to a stop and hid a smirk as he watched Aziraphale let out the breath he’d been holding since London. The demon was out of the car as soon as possible and inspecting the immediate area, giving everything a critical eye. Crowley got out and leaned on the car as Aziraphale walked a wide circle around him, keeping Crowley contained there.

It was possible, of course, that Crowley might fall in love with Aziraphale in return. Crowley had tried to dismiss his desire for the demon as just a reaction to Aziraphale’s tempting nature, but he knew it was more than that, and had been for at least a thousand years. Crowley imagined Aziraphale’s touch, dreamed about kissing him, fantasized about the press of the demon’s body against his own, and it really made no difference how recently he’d seen Aziraphale, how fresh the demon’s influence on Crowley might be.

And if Crowley fell in love, it would solve one problem, of course: acting on lust with someone you loved wasn’t a sin. If Crowley loved Aziraphale, he could go to the demon’s bed and not Fall for it. But that wouldn’t change the fact that Crowley was an angel and Aziraphale a demon. _Star-crossed lover_ was not a role that anyone coveted, and it didn’t get much more star-crossed than hereditary enemies with warring sides. Being together would put them in danger from Heaven and Hell. Crowley had to protect Aziraphale from that.

His inspection completed, Aziraphale allowed Crowley to move up the lane toward a little farm house that sat at the end of the lane, a clearly abandoned box of a building with white walls and a peeling roof. There was still no sign of anyone there. The door was unlocked, and for lack of a better option, they walked in.

At that moment, Crowley knew Aziraphale would blame himself for the fact that he had let Crowley step into the house first. Not that the demon would probably have sensed the trap any better than Crowley had.

There was a _whoosh_ of some kind of power that Crowley could hear and feel and almost see, and then he was on his back on the floor in the middle of a circle of angelic sigils that had suddenly appeared on the floor, and his ears were ringing so loudly that he couldn’t hear anything else. He couldn’t see anything outside the circle either, everything had gone dark.

Eventually, he noticed that there was a sound, but his ears couldn’t really pick it up, it was more in his mind. Something that sounded vaguely like words.

_Crowley._

_Crowley? Anthony?_

And then a name that cut through all the fog.

_Raphael._

Crowley jerked into awareness, his eyes opening and able to see past the circle now into a dirty farmhouse room with people in it, and one of them was Aziraphale. Crowley realized that the demon had been speaking in his mind, calling him back to consciousness.

The fear in Crowley, the confusion, the surprise, tamped down a bit when he could focus on Aziraphale standing nearby. Aziraphale’s brown eyes were steady on him, and Crowley felt that gaze like it was the kind of physical touch that was probably impossible across the border of the sigils.

Of course, Aziraphale did look _angry._ Demonically angry, and for a second, Crowley thought he might unleash some dark power on the three humans who were on the other side of the room from him. But instead, Aziraphale quickly slipped back into his camouflage, becoming a harmless, slightly addled, terribly likeable little white-haired man who could definitely be a librarian. He even pulled his spectacles from a pocket and put them on, blinking at the others in the room owlishly (if the pun could be excused).

“My goodness!” Aziraphale exclaimed. “What on earth is all this?”

The humans were two men and a woman with long blond hair, and she seemed to be in charge, or at least, the bravest of them. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“Well, this—this is Mr. Crowley,” Aziraphale stammered, “and I’m Mr. Fell.” (The aptness of this name for a Fallen angel had been too great for Aziraphale to resist.) “We had a flat tire on our car—”

Crowley startled at little at that. Surely Aziraphale wasn’t really going to miracle a flat onto the Bentley, no matter how much he despised the car, especially when she’d been so charitable on the way out here. For one tiny second, Aziraphale flicked his eyes to Crowley and Crowley could see the amusement there before it disappeared again. Crowley scowled back at him, cute little librarian or not.

“Don’t try to fool us!” the woman said. “We know what he is.”

“I don’t understand,” Aziraphale said. “What are you doing? Is this some kind of magic?”

“That’s right,” one of the men said. He had dark hair and wore glasses. “We’ve trapped him and now he has to do what we say.”

He walked closer to the circle and the other two followed him, their attention on Crowley, all too easily dismissing Aziraphale as a threat.

Crowley managed to get to his feet, trying to set his clothes to rights, straightening his jacket and tie. He set a foot carefully against the boundary of the circle and found it quite impassable. “And what is it that you want?” he asked.

The other man, blond and more heavyset, spoke up for the first time, in a quieter voice than the other two. “Are you really an angel?”

“Of course he is,” the woman answered. “He wouldn’t have been drawn here, he wouldn’t be trapped in there if he wasn’t. I told you I could cast the right spells.”

“You know,” Crowley said, combing gently through his hair, trying to ignore Aziraphale’s eyes closely following the movement of his fingers, “most people who want help from angels simply ask for it.”

“Well, maybe we want something an angel wouldn’t want to give,” the dark-haired man retorted.

“She doesn’t.” Crowley pointed at the woman. “You want your mother well again, Georgia. I imagine you couldn’t quite manage it yourself with the spells, so you helped cook this up.”

The woman gave a little gasp, her eyes wide on Crowley.

“The other two of you, though—” Crowley couldn’t get a good read on them, which probably meant that their desires were indeed, unangelic. He glanced toward Aziraphale, who gave him a little nod. They wanted things that a demon could sense.

Crowley sighed. “All right. Make your demands. I’ve got things to do this afternoon. Thinking about going for a long drive, explore more of the country.” He shot a grin at Aziraphale, who now scowled back at him.

“My mother,” Georgia spoke up, in a shaky voice. “I’m sorry that we—but please?”

Crowley reached up a hand and removed his sunglasses, looking at the humans with his true ethereal, serpentine eyes. “Already done.” The woman had been living with severe arthritis. It had taken a little out of Crowley, especially at this distance, but he’d managed to clear it away.

Aziraphale scoffed so loudly that the humans glanced at him for a second, but they were far more focused on Crowley.

“Really?” Georgia asked. “I—thank you.”

It was easy to smile at her then. “You know,” he reminded her, “if you’re good enough to be able to send me a letter drawing me here, you could have just written to me and asked for what you wanted.”

Georgia’s face reddened, and she looked away. Crowley turned to the other two. “Your turn.”

“I want money,” the blond man said.

There was a loud snort from Aziraphale. “What do you think he is, a leprechaun?”

They all looked at him then and the blond man croaked out, “Leprechauns are real, too?”

“Would you like to know?” Aziraphale asked.

“NO,” Crowley answered, very loudly, before the blond man could say anything else.

Aziraphale gave a little laugh, quite as a lovely old man might do.

Crowley frowned at the demon before saying, “Money’s not my area unless it’s for a good cause. I’m sorry. I’m going to have to refuse that one.”

“Oh, no,” the dark-haired man said. “You can’t refuse, or we won’t let you out of there.”

“I’m not sure I really need you to,” Crowley told him.

But Aziraphale was looking pensive. “You might, as it happens. I’ve been trying, but I haven’t quite worked it out yet. It appears that you have to break the circle from within. I imagine you’ll need them to tell you the right words.”

The humans turned to him in surprise, and Aziraphale gave them a cool smile, some of his camouflage dropping away. Crowley watched Georgia shiver.

“In any case,” the demon went on, “it happens that money for other causes is my area, so perhaps _I_ can make the deal.”

Georgia grabbed the blond man’s arm. “Luke, don’t. He’s—”

Aziraphale smiled affably at them, but his eyes had gone back to normal now, a bit of darkness visible in them that was not from their color. He folded his glasses away. “Yes,” he confirmed. “I most certainly am.”

Georgia looked from him to Crowley. “This shouldn’t be. How are you—an angel—with a demon?”

Crowley laughed. “Let’s just say that there are more things in Heaven and Earth, my dear, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Aziraphale huffed. “Cute. That was one of mine.”

“I remember, Alba.” Crowley noted the tiny spark of pleasure in Aziraphale at hearing Crowley use a silly, ironic nickname that the demon would never have allowed from anyone else.

Aziraphale looked to Luke. “Would you like to discuss terms?”

With Georgia’s hand still on his arm, Luke shook his head quickly.

Aziraphale shrugged, and to Crowley said, “That’s two down, my dear.”

“I’ll make a deal,” the dark-haired man spoke up.

“I thought you might,” Aziraphale answered smoothly. “Let’s see, Tyler. Power, is it? I could do an election, perhaps. City council? Ought to get you started.”

Georgia spoke up. “Tyler, don’t.”

Tyler ignored her. “City council’s not enough, demon. I want more than that. Mayor of London would be good.”

Aziraphale studied him for a second. “The price for that would be significant.”

“Oh, no. It won’t cost me a thing,” Tyler said with a smile. “Georgia, do it.”

Georgia’s eyes widened in shock. “What? No!” She looked at Crowley in alarm. “Tyler, he healed my mom.”

“ _Now,”_ Tyler hissed, and Crowley’s last sight was of Georgia looking frightened but muttering some incantation, before everything went black.

The pain was overwhelming. It was like Crowley was being pulled in every direction at once and yet was not allowed to come apart. The agony came over him in layers of cold and dark and fear. It was an anti-angel spell. It simulated the Fall. But there would be no release from this, not even into Hell. Because this wasn’t the real Fall, this pain would last forever without relief.

Crowley could hear Aziraphale, his voice full of rage. “Let him go!”

“Look, demon,” Tyler snapped, “we did a spell to make sure that each one of us knows only part of the words that will open the circle, so it can only be broken by the three of us together. That way he was going to have to grant all of our wishes, no matter what they were. But it also means that if you kill any of us, he’ll be in there like that for eternity. Now, we didn’t plan on a demon being here, but I think you can give me what I want even better than he could. So let’s deal.”

There was a brief moment of silence, and then Aziraphale’s voice came through again. “Interesting. Did you perhaps think to set things up so that a demon couldn’t torture you until you feel that you might like to reveal the right words?”

A beat, and then Tyler laughed, though it sounded a little desperate. “Then why haven’t you?”

There was a squeak of surprise and pain from Georgia and then her voice came up, wavering. “You started a deal with him, Tyler. He can’t harm you until it’s completed.”

“I can torture the other two of you,” Aziraphale said darkly.

Tyler laughed again. “Go ahead. Won’t bother me.”

A tiny pause, and then Aziraphale spoke up again, with a hard edge to his voice that rather sounded to Crowley like fear. “Tyler, I can’t take an angel’s freedom as payment. It has to be a sin, from you, or I can’t close the deal. Torturing him gains you nothing.”

Tyler’s voice was a growl. “I don’t believe that for a second. He’s your friend, and you’ll help me and promise not to harm us afterwards, or he’s never getting out.”

The pain was so great, so sad and hopeless now that the angel was barely clinging to reality. But as the voices from the room began to fade away, it almost felt like Crowley was hearing words in his head again. Latin, spoken slowly, repeated. Insistent. Eventually, Crowley realized what it was, and he said the words himself, aloud.

The pain snapped apart. The circle broke. And then Crowley was in Aziraphale’s arms, the demon’s glorious owl’s wings out, one wrapped around him to shelter him. Despite the harsh shaking of his body, Crowley’s vision came back fairly steady and he could see the three humans crowded against a wall, looking terrified.

“As it turns out,” Aziraphale said, in a mild tone that did not fail to sound terrifying, “I just happened to know the right words to break the circle myself. Now, it’s true that I can’t stop a deal in progress. But, unfortunately for you, _he_ can.”

Tyler’s eyes were wide. “He won’t hurt me. He’s an angel.”

Crowley groaned. “Don’t—don’t have to hurt you. Just have to dis...rupt the deal.” He ended on a gasp of fading pain.

Aziraphale shushed him quietly and pulled him a little closer, a hand behind Crowley’s head, sliding gently into the curls of his hair. The demon had never in 6000 years held Crowley like this. Aziraphale’s arms were around him, Crowley’s head on his shoulder, Crowley’s knees resting on Aziraphale’s legs as the demon sat on the floor. The wing curled around Crowley was unimaginably soft, and if the angel wasn’t mistaken, he could feel a little demonic energy stealing carefully through his body, attempting to clear away what was left of the pain.

“I think a little thwarting would do nicely about now, my dear,” Aziraphale told him gently.

Crowley pressed his face into Aziraphale’s shoulder, right against the softness of him, and felt the demon’s strong arms flex around him. Crowley found his voice. “Stop. Making deals. Right this minute. You foul, awful demon.”

He felt Aziraphale laugh. “Oh, my, so forceful! Well, I might have to fudge the paperwork a little, but I’m afraid that will count, Tyler. Our deal is off.”

Ever sensitive to humans’ pain, Crowley could feel increased fear coming from all three of them. He managed to wave a hand at Georgia and Luke, crowded together in a corner. “Get out of here.”

Needless to say, they fled. Aziraphale clucked at Crowley reproachfully, but he didn’t force the issue. He just shifted a little, trying to hold Crowley as comfortably as possible, and Crowley could feel the demonic energy inside his body get stronger now, as Aziraphale understood that it was helping.

“As for you, Tyler,” the demon said, his voice so hard in contrast to how he was holding Crowley so carefully, “I’m very much in the mood to torture and then kill you. But Crowley is not fond of that kind of behavior, and I’d rather not upset him right now.”

Crowley huffed out a bit of a laugh. “I’m doing more thwarting, am I?”

Aziraphale stroked a hand over his back. “I tell you, my dear, you’re absolutely terrifying. However, I do think a bit of a demonic curse might be in order. Preventative measure, as it were. We don’t want him trying this again.”

“No objection here, Alba.”

He could _hear_ Aziraphale’s smile in his voice. “Good! Well, then. Tyler.”

“Please don’t,” the man gasped.

“Now, now,” Aziraphale chided him. “You should know better than to play a game you aren’t prepared to lose. Especially one with such high stakes. You really ought to have done more research before setting out to trap a celestial being.”

“ _Please.”_

Aziraphale growled low in his throat and his hands tightened on Crowley, just a little. “Do not attempt to beg me. You nearly took something from me that I value over everything else in creation. So I now take the same from you. You’ll never have power. Never win, always lose. Never lead, always follow. If you are remembered at all, it will be as a failure.”

Crowley could hear Tyler crying, and then he felt Aziraphale wave a hand at him. The human stumbled out of the room, and then they were alone, a demon with an angel in his arms.

The pain had finally ebbed away, but Crowley was breathing in light gasps in the aftermath, his body slowly remembering how not to be in agony. But as it did, Crowley began to realize that something was still very wrong. He grasped at Aziraphale’s cream-colored suit jacket beneath his fingers. “Oh, Alba,” he whispered, “what did you do?”

Aziraphale stroked a hand through Crowley’s hair, gentle and calming. “Mayor of London—a deal like that needs Hell’s approval. It would have taken time that you didn’t have.”

“But, Aziraphale, that incantation _—you told me a secret.”_

The demon’s voice was light in response. “Don’t worry about it, my dear. On the house.”

That made Crowley push back to where he could look into Aziraphale’s face. What he saw there surprised him a little, although it shouldn’t have. Aziraphale was flushed, his eyes wide and dark.

There was a reason that they didn’t touch like this.

“No,” Crowley whispered. “You can’t do that. They—” He growled at Aziraphale, grasping at his arms, his beautiful demon there on the floor, in the middle of the broken angelic sigils. “Hell will do to you what those humans just did to me. How can you think I would let that happen?”

Aziraphale’s brown eyes were hardened now. “I made no deal with you, Crowley. You owe me no payment.”

“I _want_ to pay.”

Aziraphale pulled away from him then, shifting Crowley to sit beside him on the floor rather than on his lap. Aziraphale’s wings fluttered a couple of times and then the demon folded them away. Crowley immediately missed their softness, the way their warm colors had caught the sunlight coming through the dusty windows.

“Pay with what?” the demon asked in a clipped tone. “You rarely eat, you’re not a glutton. You never sleep, that’s hardly sloth. Greed? Envy? Pride? You’re a good angel, Crowley, you don’t feel those. Look at you, you have more than enough justification for wrath with what just happened to you, but you don’t feel it, do you? You don’t want to chase them down and hurt them.”

“That leaves one sin,” Crowley said.

“No.” Aziraphale looked as coldly passionate as Crowley had ever seen him, and it made Crowley’s heart speed up rather painfully. “I am not rescuing you from that circle just to see you Fall for lust.”

Crowley felt a little dizzy. Perhaps the pain was still messing with his senses, because everything almost seemed...easy now. Too close.

Maybe finally close enough. “Will I, though?” he whispered.

Aziraphale wouldn’t hold his gaze. “That’s another answer,” he warned.

“Then I’ll make you come twice.”

Aziraphale choked on the air he was taking in and his face blazed red. “Fuck, Anthony, be serious.”

Crowley grabbed at Aziraphale’s cream-colored lapel with a wavering hand. “Will I Fall for it, Alba?”

There were tears in Aziraphale’s eyes then, just enough to give the darkness of them a little sparkle where they caught the light. He was shaking beneath Crowley’s hand. “No,” he said finally. “You’ve been in love with me for the last sixteen minutes.”

Crowley sighed. “I thought so. It was when you let him go rather than killing him, I think. Also, the rescue was nice. And after the pain—landing in your arms—there’s nowhere I would rather be.”

His voice spun on almost without him directing it, as the rest of him tried to come to terms with it, watched Aziraphale try to come to terms with it, the demon’s face having lost all its flush and turned ashen.

“You’ll have to fudge the paperwork a bit,” Crowley babbled, “say I'm some random human you just met, but lust is lust, right? If I don’t Fall, they’ll believe I was human. If they don’t know I’m in love, they’ll count it as a sin. And you never do put the secret in the paperwork, that would defeat the purpose of it being secret, so no one has to know that what you told me was an incantation to free an angel...” Crowley finally trailed off.

“I don’t want this as a gift from you,” the demon said in a low tone. “Not out of kindness, not you being Raphael the Healer, don’t—”

“Alba.” Crowley almost groaned the word. “I have wanted this for thousands of years.”

Aziraphale’s eyes went wide, and then he pulled away from Crowley’s hand and stood up, backing away. “No. That isn’t real, Crowley. That’s—I don’t mean to do it, but it’s my nature, you’re just reacting to what I am. _Fuck,_ I should never have let you get this close to me.”

Crowley’s voice was gentle. “You let me get this close because you love me.”

Aziraphale once again looked quite surprised. After a second, he let out a heavy breath and growled, _“Fuck.”_ Two secrets he hadn’t known—the strength of Crowley’s desire, Aziraphale’s own love—the demon wore knowledge like armour and Crowley had just poked two large holes into Aziraphale’s defenses. Crowley wanted to reach out to him, but maybe he was too obvious about it, because the demon took another couple of steps back.

“Doesn’t matter,” Aziraphale said. “This isn’t happening. You knew you were in love, but I still had that knowledge deposited in my head. It’s still a _secret,_ Crowley, and it has to remain one. Heaven and Hell can’t find out—”

Crowley slowly got to his feet, and he noted that Aziraphale watched him with intense concern, looking for signs of remaining pain. “Normally,” Crowley said, with a slight groan, “I would agree with you. But if we don’t, Hell will punish you. Surely you wouldn’t rather be tortured than make love with me?”

Crowley came closer, and Aziraphale held his ground, though Crowley could see that it was a struggle. “I’m not willing to see you take the price on yourself, Alba. I love you. Even if I didn’t, I would never want you to suffer.”

Aziraphale put up his hands, unwilling to touch Crowley. “Stop. I don’t know if I can—you’ve just been in so much pain—and you’ve only been in love for a few minutes, you can’t know yet—”

Crowley gave him a smile, and it threw Aziraphale a little, his expression softening. “You are a demon, right?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale looked confused, and it was like his human camouflage was back for a moment. “Yes?”

“Well, I probably shouldn’t,” Crowley said softly, “but I happen to rather like that about you. Always have.” Crowley was right in front of Aziraphale now. “So fuck me,” he whispered, looking directly into Aziraphale’s eyes, and then Aziraphale’s hands were on him and Crowley was slammed up against the wall of the farmhouse.

Crowley’s head fell softly back against the wall and he had time to cry out, _“Alba,”_ before the demon’s mouth claimed his and Crowley was suddenly in a world of sensation that he hadn’t known existed before. Aziraphale’s mouth was hot and wet, and the demon licked his tongue over the insides of Crowley’s lips, and then deeper into his mouth, tasting him thoroughly. As Crowley was trying to figure out how to respond, Aziraphale suddenly pulled back.

The demon’s eyes were so dark now as to be almost completely black, the pupils of them huge with a thin ring of brown around them, no white visible. The exquisite eyes of a bird of prey.

Aziraphale’s voice was quite rough. “You have never been kissed before.”

Crowley was about to answer when he realized it hadn’t been a question, because a growl came out of Aziraphale that was frankly the most demonically possessive sound that Crowley could imagine. Aziraphale fisted the lapels of Crowley’s jacket in his hand, and for a second, everything went black. When the world came back, Crowley realized that they were in one of the flats that he owned, this one in Edinburgh. More specifically, they were in the bedroom, with its skylights and its huge windows crowded with green plants and flowers, and his messy bed with soft sheets half on the floor and pillows everywhere.

And then Aziraphale had him pressed up against the wall again, right between a fern and a palm plant, but not as harshly this time. The demon was kissing Crowley much more slowly and Crowley didn’t feel quite so overwhelmed. He wound his arms around Aziraphale and kissed him back to the best of his ability. He must have been doing something right, because Aziraphale moaned softly into his mouth.

At first Aziraphale’s hands were everywhere, on Crowley’s back, his waist, his hips, his arse, caressing, but soon enough, they came to grip his upper arms and Crowley was again pushed back against the wall, this time with enough demonic strength that he found himself quite powerless to move without using his own ethereal abilities. Crowley didn’t want to do that, though, because Aziraphale’s whole body was pressed against him, and Crowley could feel the demon’s erect cock against his thigh. He groaned.

Aziraphale pulled back, leaning their foreheads together, breathing in the air that Crowley was breathing out. “I won’t hurt you,” the demon said in what sounded like a very carefully controlled voice. “But Anthony, I—”

“Do what you want,” Crowley whispered. “I have never once regretted trusting you.”

Aziraphale growled and pulled Crowley against him, away from the wall and into his arms, and then there was that deep, romantic kind of kissing again, with Aziraphale’s hand tangled in Crowley’s hair and the angel’s lips becoming swollen from all the attention. Crowley had known that this kind of thing existed, he’d heard humans talk about it, he’d read it in books, but now that he knew what it actually was, the world made a little more sense. How odd for an angel to still be learning something about love. How heartbreaking that Heaven would forbid him to learn it because a demon was the one to teach it to him.

Suddenly, Crowley felt tears on his cheeks, and Aziraphale immediately pulled back, his dark eyes searching Crowley’s face, his hands careful and comforting. “Anthony, did I hurt you? I didn’t mean—”

Crowley grasped Aziraphale’s hands and held them between them. “No, not at all. I just—” He tried again. “I shouldn’t ask. I have no right, you don’t have a choice about your job—”

“Anthony—”

The words came out in a rush. “Can you give me something you don’t give them? Please? Something just for us.”

Aziraphale smiled at him, that sweet, ridiculously un-demonic look that crept onto his face sometimes when Aziraphale was particularly happy. “We’re not at the library,” he said softly, brushing his lips against Crowley’s cheek. _“All of this_ is just for us.” He pressed a kiss to Crowley’s neck. “For this moment, at least, you are mine.” A kiss against his collarbone as he tugged Crowley’s tie loose. “And I am only yours.”

Crowley put his hands to Aziraphale’s face and pulled the demon into another kiss. After a moment, Aziraphale turned them and backed Crowley up against his bed. The angel let himself literally fall into bed with a demon and a little laugh burst out of him before Aziraphale covered his mouth again.

Aziraphale’s hands were busy on Crowley’s clothes even as his insistent kisses took up most of Crowley’s attention. Crowley was naked from the waist up before he realized it. When he tried to reciprocate, Aziraphale pushed his hands away. Crowley broke the kissing to scowl at him. “Are you really _that_ fussy about your clothes?”

Aziraphale scowled right back. “I have kept this jacket in tip-top condition—”

“Great. Could you possibly keep it in good condition somewhere other than on your body?”

Aziraphale smirked and then started to remove the jacket very, very slowly. With his eyes on Crowley, running over the angel’s bare chest, down to the waistband of Crowley’s trousers.

Crowley groaned and lay back on the bed. “Tempter.”

In a rather amused voice, the demon answered, “I’m not sure what else you were expecting, dear.”

Well, two could play that game. “Oh, Aziraphale,” Crowley said softly. “Look at you. So beautiful. And I know you’re going to be so good, so kind to me—”

Aziraphale stilled his hands on his shirt buttons and gave Crowley a look that could have frozen water. Crowley laughed. “I’m an angel, Alba. What were _you_ expecting?”

Aziraphale’s clothes gradually disappeared, until almost all of his smooth curves and creamy skin were revealed. Only his underthings remained, and as Aziraphale removed them, Crowley quite forgot about everything else.

Crowley knew the demon was partial to having a cock. Crowley had spent far too much time imagining it, but seeing it, flushed and thick and stiff, curving gently toward Aziraphale’s rounded stomach was something else. Crowley’s mouth went dry.

Aziraphale knelt on the bed beside him, kissing Crowley gently on the cheek, the side of his neck, his shoulder. Crowley reached for him, but Aziraphale pressed him firmly down into the bed, again with a little demonic strength, apparently intent on taking his time. As Aziraphale moved lower over Crowley’s chest, the kisses became bites, light at first, and then with sharp stings, soothed over by the demon’s tongue with enough suction that Crowley was sure the marks would bruise.

At one particularly loud groan from the angel, Aziraphale lifted his head. “Still all right?” he asked.

Crowley managed to gasp out, “Yeah,” and Aziraphale hummed a little and went back to work.

Eventually, the demon reached the top of Crowley’s waistband and his fingers undid the fastenings. He looked up to catch Crowley’s eye again, and Aziraphale’s expression was full of love and concern and so much want. “You can still say no,” he assured Crowley. “Anytime you want.”

“Don’t you dare stop,” Crowley answered. Aziraphale gave him what was probably supposed to be a smug smile, but instead was just soft and rather fuzzy, and pulled Crowley’s trousers and underwear away. Aziraphale paused then, just looking over the angel laid out before him.

After a moment, Crowley grew a little worried. “If you don’t—I can change.”

Aziraphale growled at him, but said nothing else, still just staring. Crowley felt a ridiculously timed blush creep over his face. Crowley normally prefered to have a vulva when he made the effort, and he had one now. Of course, this _effort_ was more wet and swollen at the moment than it had ever been when Crowley had, ah, explored it by himself. (That was widely supposed to be a sin, and whether it was or not, at least it wasn’t on the Mortal Sin list, so angels wouldn’t Fall for it. To truly act on lust, you had to share it with another person.) There had been enough lonely nights in Crowley’s life that he was well acquainted with solo pleasures of the flesh. Usually while thinking of Aziraphale, and so having him actually here was a bit overwhelming, and then with Aziraphale, of course, having so much experience at this sort of thing—

"Aziraphale," Crowley groaned. "I'm going to put my trousers back on if you aren’t going to—"

Aziraphale looked at him then, and his dark eyes glittered with amusement. "Anthony, if you want me to stop what I'm doing, I want you to say the word _garden._ Otherwise, you are at my mercy. Yes?"

Crowley blinked at him. "Uh—okay.”

“Lovely,” Aziraphale answered. And then he waved a hand and Crowley found himself dragged backwards a bit on the mattress and bound to the headboard of his bed, soft black ties around his wrists. He gasped.

“You will not be putting your clothes back on,” Aziraphale informed him.

Crowley managed to say, "Okay," and Aziraphale grinned in pleasure, quite like he would at a restaurant when he first opened the menu.

"Now," said the demon, "there will be no more insecurity from you. You are positively heavenly, my dear."

"You hate Heaven," Crowley protested. "So do I."

Aziraphale gave him a pensive look. "Yes, you’re right, poor choice of words. You are—” He slid up the bed a little, and then leaned down to press a kiss to Crowley’s wrist just below the tie—“everything an archangel should be.” He kissed Crowley’s other wrist. “Beautiful. Sweet. Absolutely glorious, my dear.”

The demon kissed his way down Crowley’s body until he was resting in between Crowley’s legs. His warm breath against Crowley's thighs made the angel tremble. “Now, let’s see how much I can remember about worship,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley managed a groan as Aziraphale licked over his hip. “That’s blasphemy.”

“Yes, dear. I’m a demon, if you’ll recall.”

“I—” That was the end of that thought, because Aziraphale slid a finger through Crowley’s wet lips to part them, and then he followed that finger with his tongue, just a single lick from bottom to top. Crowley practically leaped off the bed, and immediately he felt his legs being spread wide and then pressed down onto the bed with a strong dose of demonic magic. It wasn’t painful, but it held Crowley even more securely than the ties, which had a little give in them.

Aziraphale raised his head long enough to say, _"Garden._ Remember? If you want to stop?”

“Yeah,” Crowley gasped, and then Aziraphale started _worshiping_ him in earnest. His fingers slipped through Crowley’s folds, pressing a little deeper. They found his clit and circled it a couple of times. Crowley couldn’t move away, but his body shook and some very loud moans rose out of his throat.

Aziraphale licked deeper and eventually slipped a second, and then a third finger inside. He was gentle, and then, gradually, he wasn’t, pressing his fingers deep, fucking Crowley on them in a steady rhythm, tender but insistent. Aziraphale raised his head to catch Crowley’s gaze, and gave him a very smug smile, as Crowley trembled below him, futilely trying to buck his hips up into Aziraphale’s fingers. And then, slowly, Aziraphale lowered his mouth to Crowley’s cunt and sucked on his clit.

Crowley came with a loud cry, and instantly, his legs were freed so that he could press against Aziraphale’s mouth with every pulse of pleasure that seized him. Crowley’s head fell back against the bed and his whole body arched up against Aziraphale’s, his arms pulling at the restraints.

The demon held him as the climax drew to an end, gently stroking his fingers through Crowley’s hair, kissing him on the forehead. Crowley leaned into the embrace as his frantic breathing slowed.

“Well,” said Aziraphale, sounding pleased, as if he’d finished a nice glass of wine, “that was lovely. I think I’ll do it again.”

“Azir—” Crowley had time to protest, before his legs were once again pinned and Aziraphale’s mouth was back on him, sucking at him, licking up all the slick that had flowed from the earlier orgasm. Crowley was very sensitive now, and fortunately, Aziraphale was far more gentle this time, humming against Crowley's swollen flesh, not taking a terribly long time to nudge him sweetly over the edge again.

And this time when Crowley came, Aziraphale released him completely, legs and arms, drawing Crowley fully against him as they lay on the bed. Crowley pulled Aziraphale into a kiss, framing the demon’s face with his hands, tasting himself in Aziraphale’s mouth. Crowley laid kisses against his cheeks, forehead, and neck, before seeking out his mouth again, and this time Aziraphale was the one to groan. They tangled their legs together, and then Aziraphale rolled them so that Crowley was beneath him.

But Aziraphale didn’t take it any farther, he just looked down at the angel in his arms with aching sweetness, brushing a red curl away from Crowley’s forehead. “You know, I knew you in Heaven,” the demon whispered.

“I don’t really remember the Fallen,” Crowley answered. “I’m sorry.”

“You wouldn’t, they made us just another secret. Tried to wipe our memories too, but I’m better at holding on to that sort of information, I think. We met a few times, you and me.” Aziraphale traced a finger over Crowley’s cheek. “I remember your hair, your eyes. You were kind to me.” He sighed, sounding lost. “Maybe if I’d stayed, we could have had this. And kept it.”

“Alba.” Crowley reached up to kiss him tenderly. “I left Heaven too, remember? None of this mess is your fault.”

Aziraphale blinked away tears in his eyes, and then he kissed Crowley forcefully.

“Make love to me,” Crowley whispered, when he could get a breath. “Please, Alba, I want—”

Aziraphale kept kissing him, but he shifted Crowley beneath him until the angel’s legs were spread wide around the demon’s hips, and then Aziraphale slid smoothly inside of him.

Crowley gasped as it happened, and Aziraphale was very gentle, moving carefully, allowing Crowley time to get used to being stretched wide around Aziraphale’s cock, even thicker than his fingers had been. And then Aziraphale took them into a slow rhythm, so smooth and delicious that at first, Crowley never wanted it to stop. But gradually he grew more desperate, closer to his edge, and Aziraphale slipped a hand between them, circling a finger around Crowley’s clit.

Crowley gasped at the touch, pressing up into Aziraphale’s finger so close to where he was taking Aziraphale’s cock, and after a moment, Aziraphale leaned his head down to rest his lips against the angel’s ear, and commanded, “Come, Anthony.”

Crowley did and Aziraphale let out a growl as Crowley’s cunt pulsed around his cock.

“Yes,” Crowley gasped, his hips working beneath Aziraphale’s, urging the demon to speed up his thrusts. “Aziraphale, yes, please, fuck—”

Aziraphale obliged, moving faster, more forcefully, angling his hips in such a way that he tipped Crowley right into another orgasm, this one more powerful. Crowley felt his fingernails digging into Aziraphale’s shoulders, and then the demon finally lost some of his composure, growling out, _“Oh, fuck, Anthony—”_ and hammering against Crowley’s hips before pumping him full. Claiming him.

When they finally fell quiet against each other, Aziraphale spent a while kissing Crowley’s mouth. And then he laid his head on Crowley’s chest.

“They’ll find you if you’re with me,” the demon said quietly. “The library’s a permanent address, it has to be easy for questioners to locate.”

“I know, Alba.”

“Not that they would even _let_ you be with me.”

“I know.”

Crowley felt the wetness of Aziraphale’s tears against his chest. “All I want to do for the rest of my life,” the demon whispered, “is to touch you. To hold you and keep you.” Azirpahale took in a shaky breath, and then moved back, releasing Crowley from his embrace, letting the cold air of the room rush in to take his place. “But I love you,” he said. “So, Anthony—go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [Shakespeare quote](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/more-things-in-heaven-and-earth--horatio) is from Hamlet.
> 
> Stay tuned for a happy ending, I promise!


	3. Chapter 3

**Present day**

**6 Months After the Abotchalypse**

**South Downs, England**

_Somebody to Love_ stopped playing and Crowley leaned in to speak into his microphone again. “Speaking of cars—“ He paused. “Hang on, I’ve just been handed a note—okay, folks, apparently we were _not_ just speaking of cars on the show, but we’re just going to ignore that note like we do all the notes—I wanted to mention that I took a drive in the Bentley the other day, took a little jaunt over to Falmouth, and a friend of mine came along.”

Crowley took a sip of tea from a cup with a handle made of angel wings. “Now, if you follow the show, you’ll know which friend I’m talking about. _That_ friend, yes. Well, when we’d made the drive to Falmouth, this friend of mine, he compared my car to a _beast from Hell,_ as he put it. 

“Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Hell, but the thing about the beasts that they have there is that they’re big, slobbering things with all kinds of legs on them, and my car—this is the _Bentley_ , mind you—is about as far from that as you can get. She’s sleek and clean and runs like a dream. I’ve had her from new, remember. 1934, I needed a car and I went and picked her out. She liked me from the start, of course.”

Crowley made a vague vocal noise. “Eh...well, she might be just a little judgmental about my friend, but that’s not really her fault, my friend is a bit grouchy sometimes, to be fair. I mean, I love that about him, but the car—she’s more fond of cheerful people, I think. Or maybe that’s just an excuse.

“So anyway, we weren’t driving at the time, of course, so the car didn’t hear my friend call her a hell-beast, but I think somehow she knew, because when we got back to the car, she didn’t want to let my friend in, she wouldn’t open the passenger-side door. Now, my friend, like I said, is a bit of a grouch, so this made him a little angry, and he _then_ compared my car—the Bentley, yes, my beloved car—to the dark horse that Famine rides, you know, as one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. _I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.”_

Crowley paused and then grinned into the microphone. “And do you know, actually, I think the Bentley rather liked that, so they’ve been getting on a lot better recently. And to celebrate, folks, here’s _You’re My Best Friend_ , of course, by _Queen_.”

_Oo, you make me live_

_Whatever this world can give to me_

_It’s you, you’re all I see_

The song was as upbeat and sweet as ever, filling the room with a cheerful beat. But it rang a little hollow to Crowley. How many times had he played this song on his show, thinking of Aziraphale? Long before radios or _Queen_ , there had been millennia where Crowley would have unhesitatingly described Aziraphale as his best friend. A few months ago, they’d saved the world together. And they still weren’t nearly as close as they had been before that afternoon in Edinburgh when they’d made love. Aziraphale had said, _Crowley, go,_ and Crowley had gone. And he hadn’t completely come back.

_I’ve been with you such a long time._

_You’re my sunshine and I want you to know_

_That my feelings are true_

Crowley and Aziraphale had faced down Gabriel, Beelzebub, and even Lucifer together. And they’d survived the first retaliatory attacks by Heaven and Hell: they’d met a witch, and she’d helped them cast a spell: temporary immunity from Hellfire and holy water. 

_Ooh, you make me live_

_Whenever this world is cruel to me_

_I got you to help me forgive_

But Crowley wondered if all of that hadn’t just made them more vulnerable, Heaven and Hell with the knowledge now that nothing would hurt the renegade angel and demon as much as seeing each other suffer. So maybe it would be for the best if they never did regain the closeness they’d had. Or maybe that was just wasting what time they did have together. 

It was impossible to know.

_You’re my best friend._

_Ooh, you’re my best friend._

Crowley switched on his microphone again. “So for those of you calling in, yes, I’ve been getting lots of requests, but I’m afraid I’m going to continue with the show anyway. Now, speaking of my friend, he and I have both retired recently, and you know what, folks, that just means that I can talk about our former employers a little bit, tell a few stories that I haven’t told before.

“So here’s a good one. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Heaven, but one of the best things about Heaven is the gardens. Beautiful gardens, Heaven, just—just lovely, you know, they started with the whole _Garden of Eden_ thing, after all. Now in Heaven, back in the day, anyway, for those of us up there, there wasn’t much of a footwear choice, it was pretty much sandals or bare feet. And that was a bit of a problem for people, because you can’t really walk through a rose garden—beautiful roses they have in Heaven—in sandals or bare feet because of the thorns, you know. So Heaven, rather than inventing proper shoes, of course, that would be too easy, the idea was that they would just remove the thorns from the roses.

“Now, it’s not as bad as it sounds, they didn’t make some poor soul go in and physically remove the thorns, they just miracled them away. So that worked out pretty well for everybody. Now, if you follow the show, you’ll know I’m a bit of an amateur gardener. And I’d spent some time in Heaven, and just really loved this one yellow rose, and of course, back then, humans hadn’t yet bred roses to be thornless, so I couldn’t get this particular rose on Earth.

“So my friend had this great idea that we would, you know, sneak into Heaven and steal a thornless rosebush. Bring it back to Earth, and I could cultivate it on my own. And this was back when we were first friends, and I didn’t yet know the kind of absolutely awful ideas that this friend has, so I said, _Sure, let’s break into Heaven, sounds like a great idea, totally fine, a couple of Earth-dwellers sneaking into Heaven to steal roses, what could possibly go wrong with this plan?_

“Well, my dear listeners, let me tell you what could go wrong with this plan. For starters, we had to disguise ourselves of course, and so my friend had another great idea...”

Crowley trailed off, looking at the piece of paper that had just appeared on his desk, creamy white, with a hand-written message in lovely script. He cleared his throat. “Uh, I’ve just had a note appear on my desk, folks, and if you’re a fan of the show, you’ll know that I usually make up the fact that I’m getting notes, but this one is actually real. And this note says I’m to stop telling this story immediately or there will be _consequences_. Apparently, this particular friend of mine is listening in on the show today, and is not a fan of this little tale.”

Crowley laughed. “Well, I don’t know about you folks, but I personally am not afraid of _any_ of the forces of Heaven or Hell...except for my friend. So that’s the end of that story for today. I’ll try some negotiating and we’ll see next week if I can tell you the ending.

“But for now, since we were speaking of Heaven and Hell, and because I’d like to annoy my friend with a mention of his _terribly good friend_ Beelzebub _,_ here’s a little _Bohemian Rhapsody_ for you all.”

While the song played, Crowley busied himself checking that the radio show was coming in where he wanted it to, reaching the listeners who needed it today. Crowley— _Raphael—_ had always been able to sense unease and pain in humans. Living in hiding on Earth had allowed Crowley to follow his own moral compass for nearly 6000 years, reaching out to help people far beyond the level of blessings and miracles mandated by Heaven. Crowley’s need to soothe and heal had never depended on Heaven’s instructions, and it certainly did not do so now.

When the song ended, Crowley spoke into his microphone again. “And we’re back, folks. So to wrap up the show today, we were talking of retirement a little bit ago, and that got me thinking about jobs. Now, as we all know, there are some jobs out there that just kind of suck your soul dry. Maybe an office job with a terrible boss who yells at you a lot, for example. And it’s hard to come home from that every day and not want to give up.

“But at times like that, it’s important to remember that there is help out there for you if you need it. Friends, family, a licensed therapist, job re-training, a religious leader, or a support group might help you find the strength you need to keep going. And the thing is that circumstances do change, they always do. You might find a new job or your current job could get better. And then you’ll find that having fought so many battles, you are far stronger than you ever thought you could be.

“As always, have faith, my friends. Even in the crazy world of today, I promise there are still a few people out there who listen to prayers. Don’t give up—today might be the day yours gets answered.”

oOo

When Crowley signed off the radio show, Aziraphale waved a flour-covered hand to turn the set off. It was the polished wood-and-gold radio that he’d always had, still working after all these years because Aziraphale expected it to. The radio was one of the many treasures he’d kept when, for the first time in his working life, the demon no longer had a library.

Aziraphale waved another hand to set a tea kettle boiling on the stove behind him. With practiced hands, he began kneading bread dough on the counter.

Throughout most of his life, Aziraphale hadn’t minded being what he was. He’d been proud, even, of having taken his life into his own hands and made the decision to seek his fortune outside of Heaven. It hadn’t been the easiest journey to make, but Hell had given him much more freedom than Heaven ever could have, along with much of the knowledge that he craved.

But since 1934, Aziraphale had been aware that he was in love with an angel. (He should have deduced that far earlier, of course, but instead, he’d been withholding information from his own mind, as if it were a secret that was too dangerous to even tell himself.) And that knowledge had changed _everything._

Except for Aziraphale himself.

Perhaps the weirdest part of retirement from Hell was finding out that apparently, the gathering of information had never quite been a practice of Hell, but of Aziraphale’s particular demonic nature, because library or not, secrets continued to arrive in his head with regularity. It was confusing, and without a clear purpose to knowing the secrets, no mandate to sell them, Aziraphale should have resented their presence in his head. But of course, knowing secrets made Aziraphale feel comfortable, because despite Hell having cut him loose, Aziraphale was, and would always be, a demon.

Aziraphale had no idea who he was supposed to be now without his library. But he knew exactly who he had been before this. For 6000 years Aziraphale’s library had meant sin and harm to others. Aziraphale might not have tortured and killed with abandon, but the secrets he sold, the prices paid for them, still caused damage in the world. And that had been Aziraphale’s choice. He’d meant to Fall. He’d accepted the role of a soldier of Hell. 

But now that Heaven and Hell were _both_ closed to him, and only the attentions of a single good, loving, unFallen angel within reach, Aziraphale found himself in a kind of purgatory that was partly of his own making. Never really knowing if he was getting closer to what he wanted or farther away. Never knowing if he should be _allowed_ to get any closer to it.

Crowley, bless him, was not helping. The angel knew that Aziraphale still loved him and wanted him, and felt quite persistently possessive of him, and by some undeserved miracle (or deserved torture), Crowley had allowed that. Just a little. Not enough. Far too much.

There was a clattering on the stairs and Crowley strolled into the kitchen with the familiar spring in his step that he always had when he’d just wrapped up a radio show. He loved it, the poor, sweet angel, he loved reaching out and trying to heal the damage in the world. Some of which had always been Aziraphale’s fault.

Crowley grinned at Aziraphale now, his lovely golden eyes lighting up, and went to adjust one of the drying bundles of basil that he’d hung in the kitchen, harvested from their own garden. “Whole wheat bread?” he asked. “Perfect thing. So bloody cold out today.”

Aziraphale sighed. “It’s barely November, serpent, stop your fussing. Anyway, had a free afternoon.”

“Doesn’t hurt that it’s my favorite kind of bread, huh?” Crowley asked. When Aziraphale just made some vaguely demonic-sounding noise, Crowley laughed. “So did you enjoy the show? Apart from the roses story?”

“Some things _must_ remain a secret, my dear.”

“Oh, come on, Alba, you looked amazing dressed as a—“

“If you want any of this bread, you will not finish that sentence.”

Crowley laughed again and with a bit of serpentine grace, pulled himself up to sit on the counter, far enough from the bread-making to keep his trousers out of the flour. Crowley’s clothes, ever changing (unlike Aziraphale’s classic style) weren’t exactly modern at the moment. Lately Crowley had looked like he might have stepped out of the 1920’s, with a white shirt, a white vest with pink stripes and a fluttery pink bowtie. Black sleeve garters stretched around his arms just above the elbow. His brown trousers, of course, were far too tight for the style, and the vest itself wasn’t quite vintage, showing a bit of a modern flair in having laces up the back. With Crowley’s gorgeous fire-red hair tumbling in waves to mid-shoulder, the back view of the angel in these particular clothes was something Aziraphale kept in his mind like a treasure.

“You know,” Aziraphale said lightly, focusing his attention away from the beautiful angel and back onto the bread he was making for him, “the person you were talking to on the radio, in London, the office worker with the bad boss. She’s one of the...she…” The blasted words stumbled and fell silent in Aziraphale’s mouth. After all this time, it was so difficult to tell a secret without a deal in place.

Crowley just smiled at him, patient, _angelic._

Aziraphale made it on the second try. “My dear, do you remember Tyler? From the farmhouse?” It was a stupid question, Aziraphale doubted either of them would ever forget the moments that had led up to them making love.

Crowley just said, “Yeah, of course,” with a neutral expression on his face. “He’s got to be long gone by now.”

“Yes, he is, it’s been 85 years. But the awful boss you mentioned is his grandson.”

“Really?” Crowley said, with a bit of a scowl.

The kneading finished, Aziraphale folded the dough into an oiled bowl and covered it with a towel before setting it in the cold oven. He pulled the kettle of boiling water off of the stove and set it inside as well, creating a hot, humid place for the dough to rise. “Apparently the curse of non-success didn’t follow over to future generations,” he said. “This grandson is a real terror. Treats all his employees horribly, not just your radio friend, Alison. She’s the VP.”

Crowley was already washing off the counter for Aziraphale, and the demon shooed him away to do the work himself. “I think we have unfinished business with this family, my dear.”

Crowley grinned at him. “Why, Aziraphale, are you suggesting a road trip?”

Aziraphale shot him a glare. _“No.”_

Crowley laughed. “Just felt a need to help me with my angelic work, then?”

It was, of course, the least Aziraphale could do. Having Crowley live with him in the cottage meant that, for the first time, the Archangel Raphael had a permanent address on Earth, a place where Heaven and Hell could find him. And their former employers certainly weren’t the only threats to the angel. Especially now, after the Earth had nearly been wiped out, Crowley’s heart housed some very dangerous questions about Heaven and God and the Ineffable Plan and their place in it. And they both knew that Aziraphale still possessed at least a few of the answers. Although the demon didn’t have to charge sins as price anymore, simply getting one of those answers would damn Crowley to the Fall.

Aziraphale had no idea why Crowley had agreed to live with him, especially when the angel still maintained such a damned careful distance between them. But Aziraphale was not strong enough to tell him again to go.

“Sure,” the demon said, with a smile on his face. And then he lied. “You know me. I’m a very nice person.”

oOo

_The archangel Anthony J. Crowley, by Crowleyisms_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The radio show was supposed to be humorous (per the AU), and I finally decided that rather than try to write jokes, it would be funnier if Crowley simply told the truth about everything, like having bought the Bentley himself in 1934 and having visited Heaven and Hell, because it would come across as a very wacky humor if you didn’t know better. 
> 
> And speaking of, I have absolutely no idea what happened with the whole sneak-into-Heaven-to-steal-roses escapade. It was one of those jokes that I thought would be funnier if I left it open, but that also meant I didn’t have to come up with the rest of the story, so sorry about that. You’re welcome to give it your best shot, folks! 
> 
> The one true joke I put in there is one that I’ve delivered myself many times while singing with different bands. It officially goes like this: “Well, folks, we’ve had lots of requests, but we’re going to keep playing anyway.” One of the fun things about being a singer is that you’ve always got a microphone! Unless the rest of the band gets wise and turns it off.


	4. Chapter 4

Aziraphale and Crowley were shown into the office of Mr. Cameron Edams in London. It was a beautiful office, very large, somewhat tastelessly furnished. Mr. Edams himself looked a great deal like his grandfather, Tyler: tall, thin, dark hair, glasses, but dressed in a conservative blue suit. Aziraphale was not thrilled to see a man who resembled the one who’d hurt Crowley so badly 85 years ago. But Aziraphale kept his thoughts to himself, focusing on maintaining his likeable, non-threatening, (retired) librarian alter ego.

“What is it?” Mr. Edams asked, a scowl on his face, clearly not expecting to see a couple of people who didn’t have an appointment.

Crowley perched on the arm of a black leather chair, looking deliciously serpentine, limbs flowing everywhere. “This is a lovely office, Cameron,” the angel said, with a smile that probably looked genuine, if you didn’t know better. “Your company must be doing very well.”

“We’re fine,” Mr. Edams said. “Are you selling something?”

“Start it by yourself?” Crowley asked. “Or your father, maybe? Grandfather?”

Mr. Edams snorted. “My grandfather couldn’t boil water. My dad was mildly successful. But this company is all mine.”

Aziraphale smiled at him. “Oh, I think you might have more in common with your grandfather than you might imagine. We knew him, you know.”

“What?” Mr. Edams looked from one to the other of them. “Look, I don’t know what you want, but I’m very busy, so—“

“Looks like you are,” Crowley remarked, in a harsh tone. “Making life miserable for your employees and the world in general.”

Crowley didn’t often get upset, but when he did, it was always over other people’s suffering. And as an archangel, his _upset_ could be a little frightening. When they’d faced Tyler in 1934, Crowley had been injured. He was at full strength today. Aziraphale smiled to see Mr. Edams shift a little as Crowley stared at him.

“So what passes for work ethic around here?” Crowley asked. “Find a way to make other people do all the work? And then you take all the credit?” The angel glanced at Aziraphale. “What do you think, Alba? Same end result for him, I guess. Not so much for our radio friend.”

Aziraphale didn’t answer, because something about Mr. Edams’ demeanor had changed, just slightly, when Crowley had spoken that last bit. Aziraphale studied the man through the eyes of his human mask.

Crowley stood up and stretched lazily. Aziraphale, admittedly, got a bit distracted watching the laces on the back of the angel’s vest strain around his lower back.

“I think,” Crowley said darkly, “Cameron, that it’s time we had a little chat. Kind of like the one we had with your grandfather. It seems we have some unfinished business.”

That was when things went suddenly sideways. Because Mr. Edams got a rather unattractive grin on his face and said, “Oh, you’re right about that!”

The CEO opened a desk drawer, pulled out a handful of some sort of bluish herb and threw it in the air while saying some sort of incantation. “Try to get out of _that_ one, angel!” Mr. Edams exclaimed, pointing a finger. And then he threw some more herb at the other man and muttered some different words. “And that takes care of you, demon!” He grinned. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for this day. My grandfather told us about what you two did. Said you’d come back eventually, when one of us made it good. Two men, acting strange, seeking revenge. Using the name _Alba._ I’ve been ready for you! Those incantations are binding. You’ll never be able to leave this place until you give me what I want!”

He turned to Crowley. “Now, demon, let’s make a deal.”

There was a moment of silence. Aziraphale moved a foot experimentally and found himself quite unbound by any incantation said in his direction. He could see Crowley attempt the same thing, with the same result.

Perhaps it was understandable, in retrospect, to assume the mild-mannered librarian was the angel and the angry redhead the demon. Or perhaps Mr. Edams was just dumb as fuck.

Aziraphale opened his mouth to examine the question, but Crowley spoke right over him. “What kind of deal, Cameron? I’m a very busy demon. Got lots of, ah, evil deeds to do.”

Aziraphale stared at him, and Crowley rubbed at his mouth to hide a smile. Aziraphale sighed with displeasure. “My dear, if this ends up as one of the escapades on your radio show—“

Crowley snorted a laugh, which he covered with a cough. Mr. Edams had come around to the front of his desk and was looking extremely smug. “I know the story,” he said. “Demon breaking a deal to save an angel. We’ve had a revenge planned for you two.”

“Enlighten us,” Crowley invited.

Mr. Edams’ grin turned, frankly, evil. “Kill the angel. The one you tried to save. He dies now, by your hand.”

Aziraphale and Crowley blinked at each other a moment.

“Come on, you’re a demon,” Mr. Edams urged. “You must want this, deep down.”

Aziraphale was about to begin a rather long objection, but Crowley smiled delightedly and said, “Boy, do I ever.”

Aziraphale’s mouth fell open. _“Excuse_ me?”

Crowley removed his sunglasses, folding them into a pocket on his vest, shooting a glance at Mr. Edams, who looked quite nicely frightened to see Crowley’s serpentine eyes, despite how ethereally beautiful they were. 

“Oh, be serious,” Crowley told Aziraphale. “Everybody knows demons can’t love angels.” He still looked ever so amused, but there was a sharper edge to it now that let Aziraphale know Crowley was most definitely playing at something.

Aziraphale clasped his hands together, a little too tightly. “My dear boy, I really think—“

“You know, you really are _so_ bloody annoying, even for an angel,” Crowley interrupted, pointing a finger in Aziraphale’s direction. “I mean, chattering non-stop about books, dragging me to one restaurant after another, museums, concerts—“

“ _Anthony J. Crowley.”_

“You just love everything about the Earth, don’t you? Art, music, food, every good thing it has.”

Aziraphale crossed his arms over his chest. “What—it’s nice to enjoy things! At least _I_ don’t start complaining in _November_ about how cold it is!”

“I’m a _snake,_ Aziraphale! It is cold!”

“At least _I_ don’t drive a car at 120 miles per hour through the countryside! Last week you almost drove us into a herd of cows!”

“Oh, you’re just the type to care about some random cows, aren’t you? And then telling me about him—“ He pointed a thumb in Mr. Edams’ direction—“saying you want to come here, to help some people we don’t even know—you have so much love in you, you daft bloody idiot!“

Aziraphale opened his mouth, shut it, and then opened it again. “Very cute. You think you’re so clever. Of course, I don’t know how popular your radio show be if I didn’t write all the jokes you—”

Crowley waved his hands dramatically in Aziraphale’s direction. “Oh, shut your stupid mouth and die already!” There was a flash of bright light. It was clearly Heavenly light, if you knew what you were looking for, but as already established, Mr. Edams did not.

Aziraphale blinked at Crowley. “Was that—”

“Ah, yes,” Crowley answered. “I just killed you. You’ll, uh, feel it take effect any second now.” He nodded resolutely. “So I guess this is goodbye, alb _—angel._ ”

Aziraphale stood there for a moment, and then sighed in a way that explicitly informed Crowley that he was in for some payback, when he least expected it. Crowley was too old a friend to be terribly frightened, of course, but he did look somewhat pleasingly concerned about it.

And then, with all eyes on him, Aziraphale placed a hand on his chest and gave a couple of grand coughs. He sank to his knees with a groan, lingering there a moment, clutching at his coat with a fluttering hand, and then he dropped quickly and rolled over onto his side. He took in one great shuddering breath before finally closing his eyes.

“ _Well,”_ Crowley said, sounding entirely too amused. “That takes care of that. What’s next?”

“Now we make a deal,” Mr. Edams answered, also sounding delighted.

“Sure,” Aziraphale heard Crowley say. “How about a reverse of the curse on your grandfather? Perpetual failure turned to perpetual success?”

“Yes,” Mr. Edams answered immediately. “That.”

“Right. So, for price—let’s see. What, ah, what sins...are your favorites?”

Aziraphale barely resisted making a snorting noise.

“Uh,” Mr. Edams answered. “I guess greed has always been pretty close to my heart.”

“Great.” Aziraphale heard Crowley clap his hands together.

“Okay, well, I’ve already been skimming from the retirement funds,” Mr. Edams said. “But I could probably take the money from the damned charity drive we have next week. Homeless kids? Something. I don’t know. Would that work?”

Crowley was silent.

“Demon?”

“Uh, yeah. That sounds fine.” Aziraphale heard Crowley shift around, probably waving his hands in the air again. “There you go. Curse reversed.”

Mr. Edams giggled.

“What now, then?” Crowley asked.

“Now, demon, I am going to kill you too!” Aziraphale could hear Mr. Edams rustling through his desk again.

“Oh,” said Crowley. “That’s not very nice.” 

This time Aziraphale did make a noise, but Mr. Edams apparently failed to notice.

Crowley cleared his throat. “I mean, uh, you can’t do that to me. I’m a demon and you’re a...puny human.”

Mr. Edams laughed. “Feels bad to be outwitted by a human, doesn’t it?”

“Ah—I suppose it would.”

There was more rustling and muttering of what was probably supposed to be Latin, and then Mr. Edam’s voice, triumphant. “There. Now die, demon!”

There was a silence. Then more rustling. Then, “Die!” again, but Mr. Edams sounded much less sure of himself.

Aziraphale opened his eyes in time to see Crowley smile. “Yeah, sorry. Not a demon, I’m afraid.”

Aziraphale groaned and sat up. “That would be me.”

Mr. Edams started making a high-pitched shrieking noise. Aziraphale glared at him as he got up off the floor. “Yep, also not dead. Shut up.” Mr. Edams closed his mouth with a smack, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

Aziraphale examined the new bits of herb thrown all over the desk in Crowley’s direction. They were green this time. “What even is that? Sage? Yeah, that’s not demons. I think it’s ghosts—is it ghosts?” He looked at Crowley, who shrugged. “I personally like to cook with sage,” Azirpahale told the CEO. He turned to Crowley. “You do understand that this little stunt proves for all time that you are far more annoying than I am. I better not have wrinkled my clothes.”

Crowley made a rather angelic sound of sympathy, and clearly not for the clothes. Aziraphale started to object, but again the blasted angel talked right over him. “I guess I never really realized it, Alba. What it would be like to have to hear that kind of offer all the time for 6000 years, having to deal with the worst of humanity. You really are so strong. You’ve just paid such an incredible price to still be a nice person and I want you to know—“

That was enough. “I think,” snapped Aziraphale, “that we should talk about _Shut your stupid mouth and die already._ You sound like a bloody angel trying to swear.”

Crowley blinked at him. “Right, yes. I am that, though.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale paused a second. “Right. I’m getting all confused. Anyhow, how did you like the death scene?”

“Not a fan, really,” Crowley said apologetically. “I expected more artistry. You’re such a drama queen usually.”

“ _I’m—?_ Oh, my dear, I’m not half as bad as you. And anyway, I only had a few minutes’ notice.” Aziraphale considered for a second. “Should I have done some blood and gore?”

“I was honestly expecting some blood, yes.”

Aziraphale tilted his head toward Mr. Edams with a smile. “Well, we could use his.”

The man gasped. “You can’t kill me!”

“Oh, no,” Crowley told him, “don’t be silly. There are far worse things than that.”

Aziraphale chuckled. “You do make a passable demon, my dear.” When Crowley grinned at him, Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Don’t let it go to your head. So what exactly was the point of all this?”

Crowley shrugged. “Mostly entertainment. Seemed like a lucky break that he mixed us up and I thought we should see where it led.”

Aziraphale started laughing. “Wait a minute—Edams, your grandfather taught you about all this?”

Mr. Edams was trembling, but he managed to nod.

Aziraphale snorted. “It wasn’t a lucky break, my dear, it was the _curse._ Tyler was unsuccessful at everything he did, including telling his son and grandson how to trap us.”

Crowley laughed so hard he had to sit down in a chair. He folded his hands together and looked at poor Mr. Edams. “What are we going to do with you?” he asked. The man started shaking a little harder.

“Well,” Aziraphale spoke up, “a demonic solution didn’t seem to work so well last time. Maybe it’s time for an angelic one?”

Crowley raised his eyebrows. “A blessing? Really?”

Aziraphale gestured to the CEO. “Well, he wants success. He didn’t really specify at what, though.”

Crowley tilted his head a moment, considering. “You know, you make a passable angel, Aziraphale. Even if you are an annoying one.”

“That will never be funny.”

“All right, Mr. Edams,” Crowley said, “I grant you a blessing. You will find success in life. Success at being a nice person. Such a nice person, that for starters, you’ve decided to donate your savings to the homeless children’s charity.”

Mr. Edams started making a strangling noise again until Aziraphale raised an eyebrow.

“And,” Crowley continued, “you’re going to step down from your job to devote your time to charitable causes. I imagine Aziraphale knows of several other people who could lead this company without making it a Hell on Earth. Your VP, perhaps?” Crowley gave Mr. Edams a look that only an angel could, soft sympathy and compassion, in spite of everything. “It’s a good life. Everyone will look up to you as an example of kindness and integrity. You’ll make a difference in the world.”

Aziraphale smiled at Mr. Edams too. A very different kind of smile. “And let’s be a little more careful about how you raise the next generation, all right? We don’t want to have to come back to have a chat with _your_ grandchildren.”

Aziraphale held out a hand to Crowley, and the angel took it, standing up from his chair. Outside the windows of Mr. Edam’s office, it had started snowing. Aziraphale clucked his tongue. “Goodness, looks freezing out there.”

Crowley glared at him. “Shut it.”

oOo

It was, in fact, quite cold outside, and as they walked toward the Bentley, Crowley was surprised to feel Aziraphale reach up and settle what must have been a newly-miracled winter hat over Crowley’s head, pulling it down to cover his ears.

Crowley smiled down at him. “Thank you.”

Aziraphale gave him an amused look. “Don’t thank me yet.”

“Ah. Revenge time already, Alba?”

The demon got a lovely smile on his face (not that he had any other kind, really). “Now, my dear, you know I’m not going to answer that. Come along.” Aziraphale held out a hand to Crowley and the angel took it, folding his cold fingers inside of the demon’s warm ones.

Aziraphale snapped and then instead of standing in the parking lot, the angel and demon relocated to the top of a nearby building, overlooking the scenery below. Aziraphale gave a little shake and then his owl’s wings unfolded around him, soft and beautiful, deep browns and creams giving a little color to what was a pure white world of falling snow.

Crowley resisted the urge to touch the wings, knowing how soft they would feel. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Aziraphale, really? In this weather?”

“Haven’t you ever been flying in the snow?”

“Yeah, no. Like I said in there.” Crowley pointed to the building they’d just left. “Snake, remember? Cold-blooded?”

Aziraphale frowned good-naturedly at him. “Oh, now, I’m only thinking of you, my dear. You know the warmth of the indoors always feels so much better when you’ve been out in the cold.”

“How kind of you.”

Aziraphale got a softer look on his face then, and it suited his features as much as any demonic grin. “You’ve been stressed, Crowley. This will do you good.”

Crowley sighed. “Tempter.”

“My job—“ Aziraphale looked down. “Well, my nature.”

“I love that about you,” Crowley told him. Aziraphale still wouldn’t look at him, and so Crowley just gave a shake of his shoulders and let his own wings come forth. As an archangel, his wings were rather showy, a near-ridiculous amount of feathers arranged in ostentatious cascades of white. They quickly started to ruffle in the wind. Of course, Crowley knew that Aziraphale thought they were beautiful, and the demon wasn’t able to keep himself from staring at them. “Let’s go,” Crowley said, taking his hand.

They stepped off the roof together, like they had done many times before (although not in the _snow)_ their wings catching the air. A miracle ensured they weren’t seen by any humans below. The wind was strong enough that Crowley had to work hard to move against it, and the exercise did warm him fairly quickly, despite his getting covered in snow.

But Aziraphale looked happy. Like Crowley hadn’t seen him for a while. Maybe it was due to being partially an owl, but Aziraphale loved flying more than Crowley ever had. Like it was part of his nature to be able to live in the world as if there was no ceiling to it. Crowley followed the demon upwards to where the currents were stronger, and then they were able to drift a while.

The world was beautiful below them. Street after street, block after block of people, driving, walking, playing in the snow. Aziraphale then performed another miracle, and suddenly they were flying over the countryside, closer to their cottage.

Crowley scoffed. “You just didn’t want to take the Bentley home.”

“Nonsense,” the demon retorted. “According to you, we’re best friends, your car and I.”

“Well, that might have been stretching it,” Crowley admitted.

“I put your darling safely in the garage at home,” Aziraphale promised him. He grinned then, flapping his wings and flying still higher. “Come on, angel.” 

Crowley followed, to a height where everything was lovely and serene. Including, at this moment, Aziraphale, who was, of course, always lovely, but rarely at peace. And seeing that warmed Crowley from the inside.

It did eventually, of course, devolve into a snowball fight. Aziraphale started it, but Crowley had assumed the idea might cross the demon’s mind, and so he was ready. They fought first in the air with miracled snowballs, and then after a while, crashed lightly to Earth to continue the battle in earnest, taking flight occasionally as it suited them, relying on 6000 years of friendship to anticipate each other’s next moves.

Aziraphale’s white curls got wet and turned slightly darker as they clung to his skin. His cheeks turned rosy with the cold and exertion. Living so closely to Aziraphale in a shared cottage had filled Crowley’s days with breathtaking beauty. And, of course, for the first time, Crowley now possessed the knowledge of where Aziraphale spent his free hours, and it was never with other lovers. At this point, Aziraphale was, in some sense, only Crowley’s.

Crowley was completely soaked when they were done. Neither of them admitted defeat. Aziraphale looked triumphant anyway as he wrapped Crowley in his arms and miracled them home. And it was, indeed, extremely pleasant to be in a warm house after all the time in the cold air. Aziraphale miracled himself dry, but pushed Crowley toward the bathroom for a hot shower, laying out warm clothes for him in his bedroom.

It had been a while since Crowley had felt loneliness so sharply as he did when Azirpahale shut the bathroom door and walked away. And so he could hardly be blamed for what he said when he walked out into the kitchen twenty minutes later, toweling his hair dry, finding Aziraphale slicing Crowley’s favorite kind of bread. “What if they come for us?”

Aziraphale looked up at him, unsurprised at the question. “I don’t know, my dear.”

“Aziraphale, I don’t think I can exist without you.” 

Aziraphale stared at him, looking slightly hopeful but mostly alarmed.

Crowley groaned and dropped his head back. “I don’t understand. Were we supposed to have this for one moment and then lose it?”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale snapped. “Be careful.”

“No, I mean it. Were we not supposed to fall in love? Or were we meant to, but it’s falling apart now because it’s not safe for us?”

Aziraphale crossed the kitchen and grasped Crowley gently by the arms. The heat of the demon bled into Crowley’s cooling skin. “Anthony,” Aziraphale said firmly, _“stop.”_

“But—” Crowley almost groaned with the hollow feeling inside of himself. “I just want to know _why.”_

And then Crowley looked upwards, addressing whoever would listen. “Were You really going to destroy humanity, do You really not care? When a _demon,_ someone You cast out, cares for them so much?” He glanced back at Aziraphale, who had gone deathly pale. “Why did She never speak to me after I left Heaven? If She was letting go of me, then why didn’t I Fall for leaving? Why didn’t I Fall for stopping Armageddon? How could Heaven and Hell want to kill us, when all we wanted to do was save what was worth loving?” His voice caught on the final question, the worst of them. “What happens if they aim for me and hurt you instead?”

Aziraphale was crying silently. “I don’t know the last one.”

Crowley pulled away from him with a small gasp. “Oh, I’m sorry, Aziraphale. I didn’t mean to—“

Aziraphale met his eyes, brushing his own tears away. “I have answers, _Raphael._ Some of them.” He took in a shuddering breath. “Do you want them?”

Crowley looked around at the room where they stood, a cottage where they were trying to blend their lives. An angel and a demon, star-crossed as anyone ever had been. But in some ways maybe it was far simpler than that. Maybe it was just two people standing in the kitchen and being stupid enough to push away the only thing they wanted.

“No,” Crowley answered softly. “Actually. No, I don’t want them. I think maybe I just wanted to finally ask. But I—I think I need to _give_ an answer.”

Crowley looked down into Aziraphale’s dark eyes, black and brown and wet with pain. “I know what the bread is for, Alba, and my favorite wine, the flying in the snow, the hat when my ears were cold, your back-handed attempts to get along with the Bentley. Moving in here together. You’re trying to take care of me because no one ever has before, it’s always been me taking care of others. You love me, and you want this, with me.

“But there’s something you need to know, and I keep trying to tell you, but you don’t listen.” He cupped the demon’s cheek with his hand, gently. “So listen now, please. When we first knew each other, we got drunk one night and I asked you what happened to the angels that Fell in the library. Whether from lust or any other sin in payment for knowledge. I asked you if it hurt. Do you remember what you said? _Not by my hand.”_

Aziraphale pulled away slightly, but Crowley slid his hand behind the demon’s neck and kept him close. “Hell never told you that you weren’t allowed to shield angels from as much of the pain of the Fall as you could, because it never occurred to Hell that a demon would want to spare someone pain. You Fell alone, Aziraphale, no one helped you. But instead of wanting to see other people suffer like you did, you felt compassion for those making the same choice.”

Crowley’s voice grew softer. “I know what the library was. I know about the pain that came from it for others, and for you. I know that, in spite of it all, you still know how to love humanity and all the good things in the world, you love them more than any other angel or demon ever has. Alba, I know who you have always been, and I love you, exactly as you are, and in any way that you will ever change. This is the only kind of answer an angel can give, the only piece of truth we know, so you have to listen to it, all right?”

Aziraphale had closed his eyes, but he nodded.

“And you love me in return,” Crowley said, “and that is the only answer I actually need.”

Aziraphale looked up at him and spoke in a wavering voice. “Can we have this, do you think?”

Crowley pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I think there’s only one way to know.”

A bit of a smile finally crossed Aziraphale’s face. “Let’s find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I hope you all liked it!
> 
> I just could not resist the chance to do a reverse reverse AU in Mr. Edams’ office. And in line with this theme, for those of you keeping track at home, there have been another couple of reversals from the 1934 scenes: Crowley has come to be super worried about Aziraphale’s safety instead of it being mostly the other way around, and Aziraphale is now second-guessing his being a demon, where before he had no doubts. And look, we reversed the curse into a blessing! I clearly had WAY too much fun with this theme. And with the whole questions/answers/secrets theme, obviously.
> 
> Crowleyisms, thank you for this, I absolutely loved getting the chance to play around in this amazing universe!! I especially adore this Aziraphale! 
> 
> However, I did end up changing, or at least, running with a couple of things about the universe as it was given to me (apologies).
> 
> First, the idea of having to pay a mortal sin for a secret is mine, and I honestly went with it solely to set up the sex scene, where Crowley can pay for his rescue with lust. That was way too fun of an idea to pass up. Of course, as far as the smut went, having the lust-will-make-you-fall rule meant that Crowley had to be a virgin. That’s not the way I originally saw him, but it became necessary at that point. And I kind of ran with the idea of Aziraphale being super possessive because he does keep secrets and also collect treasures, and that really informed the smut as well.
> 
> I also ignored most of the TV show canon because it didn’t totally fit with the reversed roles. I specifically got rid of the Arrangement, and the switching-of-bodies thing to escape Heaven and Hell’s punishments because I wanted the scene with Mr. Edams to be the first time they’d sort of switched places. With the theme of everything being reversed, I didn’t want a literal switching of bodies that didn’t get shown in this fic.
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3  
> Dannye

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are so appreciated! And please feel free to check out my other Good Omens works.
> 
> Find me on tumblr [HolyCatsAndRabbits](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/holycatsandrabbits)  
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